From the City of Toronto Archives on Flickr comes these three street scenes looking at three different places around the city in 1966, all taken by photographer Ellis Wiley. Up above, we see Gerrard Village, according to the commenters on Flickr, then below we have the intersection of Bay and Wellington streets and the intersection of Yonge and Queen streets. What do you see here?

47 Responses to “Toronto, Ontario, 1966”

1960 Mercs like the one in the top picture are not seen very often now.

I think, we have a Rambler in each picture today. Inbetween the Mercury and Dauphine? in the top picture.
A black wagon cut off on the right of the middle picture.
Possibly a white Rambler wagon next to the 1960 Buick. Kitty Corner from Art’s green Falcon, unless he wants the white one at the corner.

Greg, the little black car you mentioned is a Morris.
I spot a total of 2 `59 Rambler wagons; kind of unusual. The rose `60 Merc Monterey sedan looks rust free! So does the dark green `59 Rambler wagon in front of it. That notation has me wondering if Toronto even used salt on their roads; either that or people actually took decent care of their cars back then.
A total of 3 Falcons for you, Art–` green `62, and two white `61s! In the last photo, a `60 Buick Electra sedan and a `61 Ford at the light.

In the top photo, is it me, or is that red structure along the sidewalk sagging something bad?! Looks like the termites must be holding hands to keep it upright.

1st, those Ramblers with the fins could be ’60′s. We had a green/white 60 wagon, same body style when I was a tot. 2nd I’m not sure the year is correct on the heading. Seems unlikely there would be no cars newer than 1963, maybe 64 in a 1966 pic. So it may be that they are only a few years old, explaining why there are still wheel arches and rockers in tact.

Lots of Ramblers today. I believe the small car in front of the Green Rambler is a Morris Minor. Looks like another ’63 or ’64 Rambler on the right in middle picture. 2 door Falcon wagon is pretty rare. ’55-57 Chevy panel. Clicking on the Toronto Archives link provided some great pictures, as well. Broken axles, mud up to the running boards, and apparently, there was one heck of a fire in 1904. Looks like it devastated the city. Also in the pic’s here, not a speck of litter, hey.

Brings back mucho memories being a native Hogtowner. Mom’s old blue ’63 Pontiac Parisienne sedan would’ve fit right in. Anywho, looks like a white ’62 Olds hardtop leading the row of parked cars in the first pic.

…..street in 1st shot was the “Gerrard St Village”, Toronto’s version of Greenwich Village in the 1920-1960 era…..in an alley a few blocks up was the “Bohemian Embassy” coffee house where Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, Joni Mitchell, and even Dylan played some of their first (barely) paid gigs…….some of those little houses date from 1820.
…….knew I’d seen that photo before, saw and read about the area on an obscure site called rochdalecollegebook.com…

Had an uncle who lived there back then. Never heard of the term “Hogtowner” used for a Toronto resident, ya hoser! The Toronto Maple Leafs won their last Stanley Cup in 1966, I think. That bottom photo shows a very brisk walk during Christmas time, brrrrrr, get cold just looking at it. If anyone is thinking of retiring to Canada, Vancouver Island is the warmest place during the winter months, and better weather than Vancouver, B.C. Forget everywhere east, eh?

Lots of folks enjoy four seasons, with beautiful summers and real “usable snow” in the winter — for snowmobiling, cross country skiing, sledding, hockey, ice fishing, et. al. Cities like Montreal and Quebec are well set up to handle snow — the streets and sidewalks efficiently cleared, indoor parking and linked buildings make life there nice all year round. Lots of winter festivals and such, too.

……Falcon wagon in 2nd photo reminds me of the one I used the next year (1967)……worked at an inner city marine/small engine/motorcycle store, and one of my innumerable jobs was picking up inventory from the OMC distributor 100 miles away……..picture an already worn-out Falcon wagon towing a repurposed boat trailer, both wildly overloaded with 60hp Johnsons, Pioneer chain saws, and LawnBoy mowers, swaying around dangerously in the 70mph traffic…….but at least I got a Suzuki TC250 motorbike “demonstrator” out of the deal……great summer, 1967….

The lower two photos remind me how dingy most cities looked into the ’60′s. I used to walk past the filthy dark gray Great Northern Depot in Minneapolis going to high school on an island in the Mississippi. Once the depot was sandblasted, it was pale peach Kasota limestone…dazzling!
In the 2nd photo, the only clean building on the street is the Toronto Stock Exchange…evidently the traders could afford to take up a collection to sandblast it.
At any rate, to the left of the ’64 Olds 98 in the 2nd photo, parked at the curb, could that be a white Studebaker coupe…mid, late ’50′s? Or is that just wishful thinking?

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Daniel for showing these pics of the great city in which I live. With the metro area over 6 million people, those relatively empty streets, like the middle one by the old stock exchange just don’t exist anymore. Oh, and I’ll take the Wildcat convert in pic #1.

The last photo is actually at Yonge and Richmond. Queen St is behind the bus (red stripe above the window) which was the FW Woolworths store on the cor of Yonge and Queen. Christmass tree lights are on the Simpsons Dept store, beside the TTC bus.

We moved far away to California in October ’65… Still have a bunch of relatives spread out from Dunnville through Mississagua , TO and up to Bellville.
Our ’59 Belair was rusted out already in ’65! lol

I think these are actually from a little earlier than 1966. There’s nothing newer than a ’64 in any of them, and in the top one the Mercury appears to have a white on black license plate, a color scheme last used in 1963.

Canadians generally purchased and continue to purchase smaller cars than Americans did/do. American “compacts” were quite popular. In the 1950-s and 60-s English-Canadians purchased more British cars and French-Canadians more French cars as well. It was also a time of some unique hybrids ; the Ford Frontenac and the Pontiac Laurentian, for example.

…wow, yeah…great memories. I was 16 in TO in 1966 (grew up just north of the city) and still going to high school of course. That was the year I (..er…my dad..) bought my first car – a 1955 Meteor Rideau Victoria hardtop (another uniquely Canadian re-branded Ford). It had a 272 in it and my dad paid 20 bucks for it from a guy he worked with. It was so badly salt-ieaten that the front fenders were both rusted off about six inches back of the headlights! So of course the first order of business was a pair of replacement fenders – off a ’56. I drove that car for two years and loved it, then traded up to a ’57 Fairlane. The Vicky was so badly rusted I had to replace all the floors. That car would never be allowed on the roads today. I was very lucky that I had no major incidents in it…very lucky.

I live in Vancouver now and we were just back to Toronto for a 2-week visit…did a walking tour around all the spots in these pics..a lot has changed but it’s still sure a great city…